October-Fest
by Cinerari
Summary: A small collection of Hollween-themed Leijiverse drabbles to be updated throughout October. Contains CWZ, SPCH, SSX, SSM, GE999, and GR.
1. Fiery Chill (SSX-verse)

**Greetings, all. Aerandir asked me to post this here a little bit ago, but I couldn't seem to log in, so sorry it took so long. This is the first in a series from a little challenge I've undertaken for October. I just asked my tumblr followers for Leijiverse prompts revolving around themes of Halloween, fall, or horror, and I've been posting a little drabble based on them every few days as I complete them. I've still got a few more I could do if you guys want to send me any prompts. I'm figuring I'll post them all here in one big chapter fic, even if they're not all Harlock themed.**

**Ahh anyway, this was a little practice one I made the prompt for: Monono sees fall for the first time. I hope you like it. I was trying to get the hang of description, since I feel like that's one of my weak points.**

* * *

Tadashi hated the cold. He hated everything about it. He hated the way it sunk down below his skin and numbed his fingers and toes. He especially hated how it made the ground hard, because then he couldn't dig when he needed to.

But he didn't hear the captain say that he should grab a coat. He was too stunned by the sight of the planet they were landing on. "It's orange!" he cried in awe.

"Well duh. It's fall," Rebi giggled.

"I've heard of that!" He jumped up from his seat, placing his hands on the console and leaning forward to see more of the nearing area. "It's, um, between winter and spring, right?"

His sister playfully stuck out her tongue. "No, silly. It's winter, spring, summer, fall." She recited them as she counted each one of on her fingers, nodding once she was sure she'd gotten them all right.

"Oh...it's so orange," he repeated.

"Tadashi didn't experience all the seasons on his planet," Dr. Ban explained as he walked up to the girl and attempted to put her coat on her. She wriggled away in protest, running up to her brother.

"How does that work?" she asked.

"We just had winter and summer I guess," he shrugged. "Dad said the planet had been suitable for habitation when they first settled, but everything died off over time. The temperatures were so extreme that nothing could grow. But I've heard of fall. It's so pretty. I didn't know you could have different-colored leaves like that."

He'd became so infatuated with the color scheme, the way everything looked so warm and fiery, that he never properly noticed when Rebi was finally wrestled into her coat and Kei pulled on a second layer. The colors tricked him into imagining it was warm, and as soon as he stepped out, he found himself shivering.

The air wasn't as painfully cold as it had been on his planet. It was more of a sharp crispness that smelled clean yet earthy, like dying leaves. His breath escaped with small clouds on the air. It was cold out, but the trees still stood, covered in fiery leaves.

"We should be departing within five hours," the captain warned. His cook was staring every which-way around the area, paying him no attention. "Tadashi," he called.

"Captain, can I go look around for a bit?" the boy begged, his eyes bright with excitement. Oh, sure, he had things he had to do for the ship, but he could get those done later. Right now he just had to go see some of those trees up close. There was a huge forest right next to them, and he just had to take a quick walk through it. It was important.

Harlock thought about saying no simply on the grounds that there wasn't much to look at, but he certainly wasn't going to steal a bit of happiness from the boy if that was what Tadashi wanted. "Just make sure you go to resupply," he reminded him with a light smile.

Tadashi would get around to resupplying. First he just had to see these trees. Greenery had been rare enough on his planet, but he'd gotten used to seeing it on others. He'd never seen leaves like this though. They were beautiful.

He waded through the swarm of brown and red and gold that had already fallen to the ground, his steps like crashing cymbals to his own ears. Fall was so quiet when he stood still, but as soon as he moved, it broke the spell. He'd pause his walk to feel the silent peace again, only broken when the wind would whistle around him and send chills across his skin. He was cold, but it didn't bother him. He'd been through worse. A little cold wouldn't hurt.

As soon as he was close enough, he jumped up to grab a leaf from a low-hanging branch. Then he turned it over in his hand, examining every inch of it. The veins of orange spidered across its skin. So pretty.

He did the same for a yellow and a red and any leaf that looked interesting or different. Soon enough he had a pocket full of them, and he wasn't entirely sure which direction he'd come from. It wasn't worrisome to him. He'd reach an exit eventually, but he honestly wasn't interested in finding one.

His fingers were numbing though, and he could no longer feel his toes. He sniffled every few seconds to keep his nose from running, but he never would have admitted being cold. He'd been somewhere way colder, so he could handle this, even if he'd been wearing something warmer at the time...

It was easy to hear someone moving through the sea of leaves, so he saw Mr. Tochiro coming despite how his outfit blended in with his surroundings. He also saw the man trip on something hidden under the leaves and fall on his face. Running up to him, Tadashi helped haul him back to his feet. "Be careful, Mr. Tochiro! The doctor just fixed your nose from last time."

"I know-I know," the engineer huffed, lightly smacking the boy's shoulder. "Gosh, kid, you're turning blue."

"I feel fine," Tadashi argued, his lips trembling as he shivered.

Tochiro cocked a brow, his eyes disbelieving behind his thick glasses. "Well Harlock was worried you'd gotten lost. You know you need to be back on the ship with all the restocking done within the next two hours if you're going to make dinner in time."

"Aww, but look at how pretty it is," the boy pouted. "I can restock in a bit. Just let me look around a little longer. I keep finding new leaves!"

"Alright," Tochiro sighed as he rolled his eyes. "Just a little bit longer. I'm not going to be the one getting in trouble because you stayed out here too long. Now the sun's setting, and it's going to be getting colder out." Removing his hat, he pulled off his cloak and threw it over the boy's head. "It's not going to be good if you freeze to death, so when you decide to leave, go toward the sun. That's the direction of the town where our supplies are, alright?"

Tadashi nodded, adjusting his new blanket. He could have just plopped down right there and huddled in it until the ice disappeared from his skin. Alright, maybe he'd been a little cold. "Thanks, Mr. Tochiro!"

"Have fun, kid. Don't get too lost."

After Tochiro left, Tadashi found a river and a fallen tree and other fun things to look at. He wasn't sure what he'd do with all the leaves he'd collected, but he liked having all the little trophies. Maybe he spent a bit too much time wandering around, and maybe he was way past his curfew. He glanced toward the setting sun. Alright, he'd head back. Hopefully the captain wouldn't be too mad.

As he followed the sun, sinking down below the skyline and lighting even more of the world up with warm hues, the trees stopped around an open field. Inside it were dozens of odd roundish orange things. Tadashi walked up and curiously nudged one with his shoe. It appeared to be a plant, probably a vegetable if it was edible. There were lots of small ones and a few the size of his head. If they were edible...could he take them with him? Maybe they could have strange orange plant for dinner. He was getting to really like the color orange.

Pulling off a glove, he poked one a few times. The skin was smooth to the touch, cool like everything else. They sounded hollow when he knocked on them. He absolutely had to take one with him. They were too odd not to.

One in particular stood out, and it had to be the one he took with him. It was as wide as the captain's wheel, huge and fat and orange. He went up and grabbed it, trying to haul it up. Of course it was a bit heavy, but he'd be damned if he was going to let that stop him. Maybe he could roll it to the ship. He just needed to put it on its side.

But after all his tugging and pushing and struggling with it, all he managed to do was pull it back, where it promptly toppled him over and rolled on top of him. It felt heavier when it was crushing him. Still...he was holding it off the ground. He'd obviously won, and he couldn't give up now.

After a few minutes trapped under his prize, he again heard someone approaching. This time he couldn't see whom around the massive orange thing blocking his view.

"Are you having fun?" the smooth voice of his captain drawled.

Tadashi had lost none of his enthusiasm. "Yeah, can we take this with us? I need it."

"You do?"

"Yessir."

"What for?"

"For cooking and things."

Harlock tried to hide the amusement from his voice. "Do you know what that is?"

"No, is it edible?"

"It is."

"Then I need it."

"Alright, hang on." The captain carefully pulled the gourd off his squished cook. "It's called a pumpkin, Tadashi. You know you were supposed to be back half an hour ago. Luckily Kei restocked without you."

The boy glanced around as he sat up, the last part of his captain's speech lost on him. "Punkin?" he echoed curiously "Can we take them all with us?"

"No, but we can each carry one, I suppose, and not this one." He knocked on the massive one that had nearly crushed his cook. "You could make a pie with them." Harlock found it difficult to be angry with how happy his crewman was. It was also difficult to be angry when thinking of pumpkin pie.

Tadashi ran and grabbed the next biggest one he could find, falling on his haunches as soon as he'd managed to pick it up. With a sigh, Harlock went and took it from him. "Get one you can carry," his captain advised.

The boy puffed his chapped cheeks. "I'm stronger than I look."

Harlock ruffled his messy hair. "I know."

Once they each had a reasonable pumpkin, they headed back. Tadashi was starting to feel more like curling up with a mug of hot tea than cooking dinner, but he was going to miss the forest of warm leaves.

"Hey, Captain, is there gonna be a fall on Arcadia?"

His captain nodded, sure of it.

"Will it have punkins?"

Harlock breathed a laugh. "Well, you can always keep the seeds and make sure."

"Okay, we'll have lots of punkins! We'll have a huge garden, and we'll have all these leaves and trees too!" He continued chattering excitedly about his Arcadia, his nose and cheeks a shining pink, his breath appearing in foggy wisps. He barely took notice of the cold.

* * *

**Gosh, fluff is really not my forte, but I do like boys being dorks. The next one is Maetel-centric fluff fic about baby Maetel's Halloween escapades, or lack thereof. **


	2. Hollow (GE999-verse)

**This one was submitted by 1000-year-queen, who wanted "Maetel reminiscing about one time when she was little, and Promethium put on a Noh mask to be a bad guy in a game of pretend." Oh no, cute sad family times.**

* * *

The stars outside the window passed by as Maetel watched in silence, trying to distract herself by counting each one. By the Earth calendar, it was October thirty-first, and as Tetsuro had so suddenly reminded her, it was Halloween.

It wasn't a holiday they'd ever properly practiced on La Metal, so it shouldn't have made her feel nostalgic. But no matter how many stars she counted, she couldn't keep herself from slipping into the past, into that memory of the frozen wasteland of a home and everything she'd left on it.

The stars became snowflakes, drifting down endlessly across the black expanse of sky. She watched them from the window of their dining room, her hands pressed up against the frosty glass. "I wish we still had sunshine," she hummed sadly. "I want to go out and play in the grass."

"There isn't any grass," Emeraldas grumbled, slipping out of her chair. "The snow killed it all. Come practice swordplay with me. I'm bored."

"I don't like swords," Maetel frowned.

Emeraldas crossed her arms with a slight huff. "I know, but the boys are all so easy to beat, and Dad won't fight me."

Maetel figured that was probably due to his bad leg, but she decided to leave the topic be. Her sister would only continue arguing no matter what reason their father may have had. "Just be careful," the blonde called as Emeraldas turned to head to her room.

The red-head waved her hand as though to brush the words away. "Yeah-yeah."

Maetel returned to watching the snow fall, wondering if it was falling the same way on Earth. Of course it couldn't have been as cold there, but her mother had said that it snowed on Earth too. It snowed and rained and flowers bloomed.

She was broken from ruminating by a sudden, playful "rawr" behind her. Turning, she found her mother in a carved white fox mask, detailed with red and black paint. Her mother had said she was going to look through some old things, and Maetel stared at it in awe as Promethium winked through an eye hole.

"Why hello, little lady," Promethium called, deepening her voice. She gave a sweeping bow in greeting.

Maetel's eyes brightened, a smile spreading across her face. She'd heard stories about foxes, and they were smooth talkers, not to be trusted. "Hello, Mr. Fox! You can't eat me, okay?"

"I can't?" Promethium gasped. "I mean, I would never!"

Maetel stuck out her tongue before hopping down from the window ledge and running around to the opposite side of the table as the "fox." "You can't eat me, because you can't catch me!"

Promethium stalked around the table while her daughter kept herself at an equal distance from the queen. "Well, little lady, we foxes are very fast."

"I'm faster! I'm faster than Em!"

"Goodness, that is fast."

The two began circling the table faster and faster until they were almost running. They'd both forgotten Ban's rule of "no running in the house," but he would have had a hard time being angry with them. Bright squeals of excitement escaped Maetel as she ran, and Promethium could only laugh as she stopped on a dime. Her daughter couldn't correct herself fast enough to turn, and her mother scooped her up, spinning her around.

"I got you, little lady!" the fox cried, victorious.

"No!" Maetel howled. "You can't eat me, Mommy! I taste terrible!"

"Oh, that's too bad." Her mother plopped down to sit on the floor, holding her daughter in her lap. Carefully removing the mask, she allowed Maetel to take it and try it on.

"Now I'm your fox baby," the girl cooed as she peered through it.

"That's right. You're just as smart and quick as one."

"This is a really pretty mask, Mommy. Where'd you get it?" They certainly didn't have any like it on La Metal. It was made of smooth, carved wood, and Maetel ran her hands over it in amazement.

"It's from Earth." Her mother's eyes softened as she remembered. "One of my dear friends let me borrow it for Halloween."

"Hal-low-ween?" Maetel echoed curiously. Stories about Earth were always her favorite. Even Emeraldas liked them, though she usually like their father's stories of Arcadia more.

"It was a very strange Earth holiday. They dress up as monsters, because it's supposed to scare away the real monsters, I believe. And then they go to their neighbors houses and knock on the doors, saying… I believe it was "trick or treat," because then they receive candy."

"We should do that!" Maetel cried without a second thought. "We should do the Hallow-ween!"

Promethium frowned worriedly at the idea. "Well, I don't know that…people would be able to give you candy…"

"Not the candy! I want to dress up! Let's dress up as foxes! We'll be a fox family!"

"Ah," her mother smiled. "I don't have any more masks, I'm afraid."

"That's okay, we can paint our faces and make ears and tails!" Maetel was so enthralled with the idea that there was no turning her down. Promethium and some of their workers assisted with making the outfits while the young girl instructed them.

Emeraldas was less enthused. "I'm not wearing that," she muttered, pouting at the sight of the fuzzy ears glued to a headband.

"But we made them match your hair," Maetel pleaded. "You have to be my fox sister, because we're smart and quick, right?" She looked to her mother, who nodded. Their own blonde ears had already been placed on them, and their tails were tied on by belts. Whiskers of black paint were streaked across their face.

Emeraldas was sure being eight made her much too old to play around with such silly things, but she hated seeing her sister upset. "Fine," she huffed. It was hard not to smile as Maetel's expression brightened.

Ban wondered if he'd stumbled into an odd dream as he stepped into the dining room to find all his girls dressed up. "We're celebrating Hallow-ween!" Maetel explained eagerly.

"Are we?" he smiled.

"Yeah! We're a fox family! You have to be the daddy fox!"

"Alright," he laughed. "Sounds like fun."

"We'll all be smart and quick," Maetel giggled, spinning around so her tail would fly out, "so we can scare away the monsters."

"I can scare away the monsters for you," Emeraldas argued. "I don't need to be a fox for that."

Maetel stared out at the stars that were slowly coming back into focus. It was better not to remember and not to stay in the memories.

She glanced toward her sleeping companion. He'd barely mentioned the holiday, because he'd been too poor, too cold to celebrate it on his little frozen patch of Earth. Halloween, what an odd tradition. "We become monsters," she murmured, "to scare away the monsters, or we become foxes to outrun them."

* * *

**I dunno how well this meshes with canon and all, but I do like cute sad family times. The next one is about... Well, I really haven't picked yet, but I'll probably do the college AU with Harlock and Zero going to a costume party, because that just can't end well.**


	3. Skirts & Shots (CWZ College AU MxM)

**This one was requested by Sailor-Prince, who wanted "College AU; Zero and Harlock go to a costume party and get plastered. Bonus points if they're wearing the dumbest couple costume." **

**This one is so dumb and full of Harlock sexually harassing Zero. Yeah... I regret everything. Er, thank you for reading. Sorry if there are any mistakes.**

* * *

I needed to remind myself never to make a bet with Harlock again. That bastard was such a cheater.

"I didn't cheat," he said again, probably reading my irritation. My eye was twitching, my fists clenched at my sides. There was no point in trying to carry out my loss with dignity. It wasn't possible. I just had to get this damn thing over with.

"Don't speak to me," I spat. "There's no way you could have beaten me." No one bested me in chess, especially not some punk underclassman.

"Someone sounds bitter," he snickered, lacing an arm around my neck.

"You did kind of cheat," Tochiro agreed. "It's not generally acceptable to hit on your opponent in chess."

"Hit on" was one way to put it. More accurately, he'd made disturbing advances until I couldn't think straight. Bastard pervert. Why hadn't he been kicked out yet?

"I don't think there's anything in the rules that says you can't," he smirked triumphantly. "I was just trying to get in character. Aye, wench?" The heels of his boots stomped firmly against the sidewalk with each step, while mine clicked and wobbled under me. These damn shoes were going to break my ankles.

"I promised I'd wear the damn outfit," I hissed. "I didn't say anything about playing along in character." I'd pulled my skirt down as far as I could, and it still wasn't down to mid-thigh. Despite the high heeled boots coming up to my knees, I was freezing in the night air. The material that made up my red jacket was thin. It was the only reason I hadn't elbowed Harlock in the gut for touching me; bastard was warm.

They'd gone out of their way to find the cheapest "sexy" pirate girl outfit they could, and I was going to kill them after tonight. Maybe Tochiro could get away with a firm beating since it hadn't been his idea in the first place. That didn't excuse him for helping out though.

Harlock's outfit was the men's version of mine, and it had pants and level shoes. I would have killed for those. He removed his three-pointed hat, ruffling his mess of brunet hair with a huff. "This thing's obnoxious," he decided as he placed it on my head.

"So why are you giving it to me?"

He shrugged. "You like hats, don't you? I'm not used to wearing them, so you'll take it."

"I don't like stupid pirate hats," I grumbled.

"Well, we could have gone with cop and sexy cop. Then you could've had one of those hats instead."

"I'm beginning to see why some women find their costume selection demeaning." Cops weren't supposed to be sexy. Why would that even be a fetish? Why was everything a fetish for Halloween? I really preferred it as an excuse for eating candy.

I doubted there'd be much actual candy at this party they were dragging me toward. I could hear the thrums of a bass as the house came into view. Certainly hoards of underage party-goers had already crowded inside, possibly already drunk as well. I avoided parties like Harlock avoided studying, and I could only see myself hiding in a corner with a cup of whatever cheap booze they'd stocked up on. At least with everyone getting drunk, there wouldn't be many people to remember my outfit.

Despite that thought, my steps unconsciously slowed as we neared the front yard. Harlock rolled his eyes and grabbed my arm to drag me forward. "Don't worry. Your ass looks fine," he assured me with a winning smile.

Grabbing his arm, I snapped it into a kimora and bent until a surprised noise of pain left him. "Quit looking at my ass!"

Despite how close his arm was to breaking, he didn't seem terribly worried about it. "Okay, sorry. Can I still touch it?"

"No!"

Tochiro managed to usher us both inside with all our limbs still intact, muttering something about how freezing it was outside. It was at least warm in the house, probably because the two-story rental was cramped with people all in costume. I may have been the only man in a costume designated for women, but I certainly wasn't the only one wearing something humiliating. Perhaps it was the theme of the party to wear something atrocious.

One of the few not humiliating costumes was the sleek silver dress Emeraldas was wearing. She beckoned us over to the corner of the room she'd sectioned off with a slight nod. Everyone had naturally radiated away from her due to the firm glare in her eyes, and she'd secured a couch for us. Thank God; my feet were killing me.

As we drew closer, I finally noticed the bright white apple symbol detailed into her dress. "Is she a Mac?" I muttered.

"Yeah," Harlock said. "Didn't you notice Tochiro's costume?"

What costume? I had been wondering about the odd coloring on his outfit, but I'd learned not to ask too many questions when it came to Tochiro and just accept things. Seeing my confusion, the shorter male, raised his arms out to his sides, stretching out his cloak to full view. It created a sort-of flag made up by four colored squares of red, green, yellow, and blue. Oh, he was Microsoft. She was Apple.

"Why couldn't we have gotten clever costumes?" I questioned irritably.

"Because Harlock is a cheap pervert," Emeraldas answered matter-of-factly. She motioned to the bottle of vodka and glasses on the table. At least she'd gotten us something better than beer. Still, I really would have preferred bourbon.

Technically, none of them were old enough to drink. Harlock was a sophomore, Emeraldas and Tochiro freshman, but everyone drank and everyone knew it. I was too eager to get buzzed to nag them about their drinking habits.

Tochiro hopped up onto the couch beside her, and Harlock took the third seat. He gave a telltale smirk. Bastard knew my feet were killing me.

"You'll be dead before this night's over," I warned him dryly.

"Well, do you want to sit or not, princess?"

I considered driving one of my four-inch heels into his crotch, but it wasn't worth the trouble. Instead I plopped down into his lap and grabbed the vodka bottle. It was goddamn cake vodka, which I didn't realize 'til I'd knocked the drink back and started downing it. I hated sweet alcohols.

"I thought you said you weren't going to get in character," Harlock hummed, wrapping his arms around my middle.

I lowered the bottle for a second to growl, "If I break this on your head, is that in character?"

"I should say so," Emeraldas chimed.

"Yeah, but we'd have to carry him home if he passes out," Tochiro nodded.

I couldn't help but be amused by Harlock's irritation with his friends. "You're not helping," he mumbled before turning back to me. "You know, you don't have to hate me."

"Are you sure? Because you're making it pretty difficult not to."

"I know you're pissed off, but just because I beat you in chess-"

"You cheated," I interrupted.

He was unfazed. "Just because I beat you, doesn't mean you can't have a good time."

I blinked at him. The alcohol had yet to kick in. I'd need some more. "You just brought me here to get me drunk, didn't you?"

"Well, that and the outfit," he confessed with a shrug.

"God, you're an asshole."

"I am not. I just happen to think you look nice that way, and when you're drunk, you're more likely to forget how much you hate me and realize how attractive I am."

"We'll see about that," I snorted, kicking the bottle back up. Eventually he found something to drink too. I wasn't sure what, but it looked fruity. I made a note to make fun of him for it later.

Things got a bit blurry, and I was finally feeling nicely warm. I fell into place among everyone else, acting like an idiot and not caring about it.

I did get a bit irritated with Harlock for constantly having an arm around me. "I'm the only one who can harass you," he insisted, glaring death at anyone who complimented my outfit. The alcohol had put a heavy blush to his cheeks, and for some reason that was hilarious. I snorted and laughed, leaning against him to keep myself from falling over.

His response was to hiccup and smile warmly at me. Then he grabbed my butt, and I punched him across the face.

It was possible that the amount of alcohol we ended up downing could have killed a large animal. I recalled different vodkas and beers, a sip of Everclear, shots, Jello shots, something orange... I didn't usually drink enough to have a blackout, but I certainly managed it then.

I woke up in his apartment, only a few doors down from mine. I was still in that damn outfit, but maybe that was better. My shoes were nowhere to be seen, though my feet were hurting worse than my head.

At least I wasn't cold anymore. Harlock was sharing a blanket with me and keeping things comfortably warm. We'd both crashed in his recliner, which was fine. He was still wearing all his clothes too. Tochiro was sleeping on the couch nearby. I wasn't sure where Emeraldas had run off to. I didn't even remember seeing her drunk at all.

There was a cheap plastic medal around my neck that said I'd won some contest. I didn't remember getting it, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know what I'd won. I was in desperate need of some aspirin and a bath. A shower would have been preferable, but I doubted my ability to stand.

"Harlock," I called. He appeared to mostly still be asleep.

"Mm-hm?"

"I hate you."

He smiled lightly. "Mm-hm. Are your feet still hurting?"

"How'd you guess?"

"You spent a good portion of the walk home saying how you were dying, and your feet were going to fall off, and you hated me. I think you threw those shoes over the balcony."

"Good."

Slowly, he dragged himself off the recliner and stood. With a yawn, he stretched until a few joints had popped. "Alright," he sighed as he placed an arm behind my shoulders and another under my legs. "Here's your revenge, eh?"

"I don't recall asking for this," I hissed, hurriedly pulling down on my skirt as he scooped me up.

"Gotta get you home. I can help you take a shower too if you want."

"You're dead, Harlock. You're dead! Put me down or I will break your jaw, and then let's see you try to grin, you smug bastard."

"I had fun too. Let's do it again sometime."

* * *

**Let's pretend this never happened. The next installment will _probably _be about Harlock playing an unfortunate game with a psychotic interrogator.**


	4. Disjointed (SSM-verse)

**Keep having trouble logging into my account to post these. Hope that login error is all fixed now. Anyway, this one was supposed to be one of the horror-themed ones, but I'm not sure I did that correctly. I'm not sure why I tried to give this one a plot either. Torture fics don't need plots. They just need torture. I do want to write more fics with Nazca that don't involve him being dead or maimed, so hopefully I'll get to do those soon. **

**Definitely a violence warning on this one because of my OC. If you read Memento Mori (I'm so sorry you went through that) then you saw him in his beta stage. He's a lot less of a hypnotist and more of a sadist now. He's my favorite OC. **

* * *

The air smelled like blood. That was the first thought to register in Harlock's mind. He was accustomed to the smell. After all, he'd caused it to show up plenty of times with a quick cut of his saber, but this time the smell had risen to a hideous stench. This time it wasn't his fault.

"Captain. Captain!" the young voice of a male screeched.

Harlock winced against the noise. "Nazca?" he called curiously as his eyes dragged open.

"Finally!" his youngest crewman huffed. "I thought you'd up and died or something."

Ignoring him, as he'd found it was best to do, Harlock examined his surroundings. The room wasn't dirty. There was no sign of the blood he was most certainly smelling. In fact, it was frighteningly stale and decontaminated. The walls, the floor, the ceiling - they were all a blinding white tile. The only thing that broke the theme was the silver table he and Nazca were both seated in front of. The obnoxious kid's wrist had been strapped down to it with a leather restraint, while their other hands were all bound to the backs of the chairs they'd been firmly tied to. They had no weapons. They had no escape.

"Why are we here?" Harlock demanded.

Nazca shrugged as best he could manage. "Someone filtered some sort of knockout gas into our air system. Didn't even realize it until you passed out. I've been in here forever, and you've just been asleep."

"Did you at least put out a distress call?" Harlock questioned. They'd made sure to install one in his ship and on the beeper he used to control it from his belt. They'd reminded him at least a dozen times that he had them for emergencies.

"Nope, but if my ship's nearby, Tochiro can track it, right?"

Harlock gave an irritable growl. "_If _it's nearby. This is the last time I take some kid out on a test ride. You'd better hope that ship's still in one piece, or so help me…" Nazca had already stopped listening. He was staring over his captain's shoulder, his expression an unreadable mix of disturbed confusion and worry.

"Evening, gentleman," a melodic voice purred.

Harlock craned his neck, turning to see an unfortunately-familiar white tux and icy blue eyes framed by a white masquerade mask. "Icarus," the captain growled. He'd never actually seen the mercenary, but the pale blond was a bit famous for being a ruthless interrogator that could be hired by anyone. Harlock had never been fond of people whose morals were solely driven by sadism and money.

Nazca was still wondering just where in the hell that weirdo had popped up from. Did this room even have a door?

The weirdo cracked a wide grin like the Cheshire Cat as he strode up toward them, spinning a hammer skillfully around his gloved hand. "I see you know my name," he said, proud of himself. "That's good, because I know yours, Harlock. I suppose my name's not quite as popular as yours. I've tried to keep it that way, but what can you do?"

"You're famous because you're crazy and you go overboard," Harlock drawled. He was not dealing with this.

"I've never heard of you," Nazca snorted. "You look like a pansy."

"Ah, well my name is Icarus," the man noted with a slight nod. Insults rarely bothered him. "And I heard that you were Nazca. Is that correct?"

"Yeah. Now, could you remove all this shit?" He tugged on the strap holding him to the table. "I need to get back to my ship."

"Oh?" Icarus smiled curiously. He seated himself on the table and leaned toward the younger pirate. "So that's your ship? It's certainly a cute little thing, but the engine needs a bit of work, yes?"

"It's not cute!" Nazca snapped. "And I'm still working on it. We were on a test run so I could take a look at the kinks and-"

"Nazca," his captain interrupted. The boy looked up to see uneasy glare in Harlock's eyes. "This is an interrogator. Don't tell him anything."

"What? What's telling him about my ship going to hurt?"

"That's right," Icarus shrugged. "I'm simply carrying on a conversation. My employer isn't interested in your ship, little Nazca. They're interested in yours." His eyes rolled over to bore into at the scar-faced captain. "Your Ar-ca-di-a."

Harlock's spine stiffened. No one was supposed to know about the ship Tochiro was building. He could count on one hand the number of people who knew its name. Or at least, he could have before.

"So what can you tell me about it?" Icarus pried as Harlock remained silent. He wasn't going to be getting any answers out of the elder pirate. Not without a little coercion. "So be it."

Nazca's palm was flat against the counter, each finger strapped along with his wrist. The hammer in Icarus' hand had barely registered, but the young engineer finally took note as the interrogator twirled it up.

The boy felt a small prick on the back of his palm and looked away from the hammer just in time to see a simple carpentry nail driven into his hand with it.

He was so startled that he didn't scream. His eyes widened as pain shot up into his arm and sent a fire through his hand. "O-oh," he choked, the color draining from his face.

"Now you can't pass out yet," Icarus murmured soothingly as he lightly tapped the underside of the boy's chin with the hammer. "That one didn't even hit bone. Did you know that most people have twenty-nine joints in their hand? Now some of those are sliding joints, and we're going to mostly focus on the hinge joints. But don't fret. There are still plenty of them."

"If you need information, just torture it out of me," Harlock snapped viciously. "If you're as good at interrogation as you think you are, you'll be able to get the information out of me that way, right?" Why had he agreed to take the kid on again? He should have known it would only cause him trouble. He swore he'd never take any more kids onto his ship, for their own safety.

"Because it's just more fun to watch you agonize over other people. I'd heard you were much softer than your outward appearance suggested, and it does seem the rumors were true. That makes things fun, unless of course, you feel like telling me about the location of this Arcadia of yours."

"What makes you so interested?" the captain hissed. He tried not to wince at the sight of the blood seeping out of his youngest crewman's hand.

"I'm not interested," Icarus shrugged. "My employers are."

"And do these 'employers' have a name?"

"I'm afraid they prefer to remain anonymous."

"Assholes!" Nazca suddenly screeched. "Bastards! I'll beat their faces in!"

Icarus laughed in amusement. "Back to your senses? I like you, little Nazca. This is going to be fun."

Harlock jumped back in as Icarus reached for his pocket. "So do you have any idea why they're assuming it exists?"

"You mean," Icarus smirked, "how do they know about it? You don't need to act like it doesn't exist. Your reaction told me enough. And finding that information was all I could get out of my last job before…it ended."

"And why are they so interested?" Harlock continued. As much as he was curious to get the information, his primary goal was to stall. If they waited long enough, Tochiro had to find them. There was simply no other option. He would give up no information.

"Shouldn't it be obvious? They want the ship, or at least the blueprints. However much is finished is fine with them, and it does sound as though you know where it is, so do you feel like telling me yet?"

The captain looked to the young engineer, who seemed surprisingly calm about the matter. He stared at the nail in his hand as though he could glare it out of existence. "Nazca," Harlock called.

"Yeah, Captain?"

"Think you can hold out for me?"

The boy sighed, irritated. "I can try. I do kind of need my hand though."

Icarus pulled another nail from his pocket and placed it over the most distal joint of his pointer finger. "It's probably better if you don't look," Harlock advised.

Nazca forced his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. This pain was worse. He howled through his gritted teeth. The crunching splatter of his skin and bone made him want to cover his ears. He would have given anything just to block something out. "Son of a _bitch_!" he screamed.

"How are you feeling?" Icarus smiled.

"Like you just drove a fucking nail through my fucking finger, douche-fucker!"

"Oh, I apologize, but I still have a lot more nails to work with, little Nazca."

The boy's eyes hardened, and he calmed his breathing. "Bring your worst, you sick bastard."

The third nail didn't break him, and he was able to keep silent, but the fourth went through his knuckle. His voice rose in pitch for the moment it escaped him, and he kept his eyes firmly shut. He didn't want to see. He didn't want to see his hand being torn apart. He'd have to get a mechanical one to replace it. There was no fixing damage like this.

Icarus' voice was taunting and cold. Every word he spoke made the boy want to break out and rip his smug face off. But the captain's voice was surprisingly soothing. It was calmer than its usual commanding tones. "If you feel like you might be able to pass out at any point," he said, "just give in and pass out. You don't have to keep a brave face."

"I've got this," Nazca hissed. "This is nothing."

The fifth nail went through the lower area of his hand, and he wished he could pass out. "Fuck! Fuck _fuck! _I am going to rip your balls off!"

The blood warmed the underside of his hand as it poured out, coating the tabletop. Icarus laughed.

With every nail came a screamed insult and a laugh from the madman. Harlock considered again and again just telling the location. It wasn't worth this, but he'd promised his friend that it wouldn't get out. It was Tochiro's work, and the captain couldn't simply give in. There was no way he could turn over the ship his friend had worked so hard on.

Nazca wondered just how many joints he could possibly have. His hand already seemed pretty well broken, so what was the point? He'd lost count of the number – maybe ten or eleven – when he couldn't manage another enraged scream. Instead he gave a choked whimper. Looking up to his captain, he tried to convey his desperation. There had to be something he could do to just end this. Something. Anything.

He couldn't see Harlock's face through his blurred vision, but the man spoke. "Nazca, I know this is a lot more than it's fair to ask of you, but I swear I'll make this bastard pay."

"How sweet," Icarus cooed. 'Hang on, this one's crooked." Flipping the hammer over in his hand, he pried the offending nail out while Nazca gasped and fought it his restraints.

"Stop it!" he screamed. "Stop!"

"Oh, don't worry. I'll replace it."

"No!" Nazca begged. His only answer was the sickening sound he'd slowly grown accustomed to thinking of as his hand being taken from him. This time, he finally screamed in agony. He bowed his head and screamed away the pain until his voice gave out.

"I'm sorry," Harlock responded lowly. He hated apologizing, but he did truly feel sorry.

"This hand looks like it might be taking a bit too much blood from you," Icarus frowned. "I'll need to hurry."

Harlock had forced himself to watch every nail be driven in, forced himself to stare at the mangled, twitching hand. He didn't have the right to look away unless he was looking to his youngest crewman's face, which was somehow a worse sight.

Another nail, and Nazca cursed his luck again. This time his voice broke, the tears finally escaping to his face.

"Nazca," Harlock began, but the boy cut him off.

"I-I've got this, C-Captain. I-I can…I…" He could what? He was going to throw up pretty soon. That was as much as he could tell. He still didn't feel any closer to passing out.

"Good enough," Icarus decided suddenly. "I don't like the rest of the joints as well."

"W-what?" Nazca blinked, dazed. "W-we're done?"

"Well, I never said that. I haven't gotten my information yet." The madman stalked over to the wall and opened one of tiles, revealing a small hatch. He pulled out an ax. "I always get my information."

"Don't you dare," Harlock growled. "Don't you lay one more hand on him."

"I haven't touched him," Icarus smiled as he strode back toward them. "And if you'll just give me my information, I'll stop. But I need to dislodge him from the table, and this is actually the merciful way. Otherwise I would have had to remove all those nails."

Nazca's eyes were hollow. Would it make the pain go away…? If it would deaden it, he didn't mind. He had to get a new hand anyway.

"And don't worry," Icarus purred as he raised the ax to line up his strike. "I still have plenty of nails left. And you've still got five more fingers."

* * *

**I was thinking about ripping fingernails off, but I went with the nails in joints instead. Higurashi is a nice show to get inspiration from.**

**In the next one, Daiba finds himself caught between a rock and a guy trying to kill him.**


	5. Pursuit (SPCH-CWZ crossover)

**Blech, I don't think this one turned out so well. Requested by my pal Blusey: "Zero being possessed by a spirit and trying to violently murder Daiba." I cheated and didn't do the spirit thing, because I'm the worst. I was really tired while writing this, and now I'm still tired. Gosh. Ahh, I hope you think it's okay. Thanks for reading.**

* * *

_Breathe._

_Breathe_.

_Breathe damnit!_

_He can't see me. I've just gotta calm down and breathe._

That was a nice idea in theory, but my breaths were loud, airy wheezes. I just wanted out of this fucking maze, away from this psycho.

His footsteps were finally growing more distant. That noise was the only thing that had kept me alive to this point - the hollow, droning hits of his boots against the stone floor. It had told me when he was close and when he knew my position. He sped up when that happened. Then I would just run.

Everything was stone here - the walls, the ground. I assumed it was all a dark gray color, but I could barely see anything in the near-nonexistent lighting. What little light I had came from the stars in the clear night sky above the ten-foot walls. My eyes had adjusted just enough to see to edges and turns, but I hadn't been able to distinguish a few dead ends and had run headlong into them.

It was a literal maze, and I'd tried keeping my left hand on the wall, following my way out, but he was keeping things from being simple - this weird, crazy guy, whom I could barely see in the dark. He was taller than the captain. I could tell that much. And his eyes shone in the darkness, void of emotion.

Next time I wouldn't wander off on my own. Next time I would make sure I wasn't running into a maze without realizing it.

With his footsteps growing dim, I pulled out my communicator from where I'd hidden it on my belt. A little blinking red light illuminated the small area around it, and my hope plummeted. I had no signal. How in the hell did I not have a signal? That would have required an interference to be nearby, and I doubted the soulless monster chasing me was causing one.

_Okay, breathe. Breathe and get out._

Rounding the corner, I headed down the opposite direction from him in a sprint. I didn't care if he heard my footfalls pounding against the ground. I couldn't hear him anymore, so I prayed I now had enough time to get a good distance away, maybe even find the exit. That was all I could hope for now.

I didn't have my gun. He'd knocked it form my hand as soon as I'd first run into him. Then he'd slammed my head into the wall. The blood still hadn't stopped pouring from the cut above my eyebrow, and I'd nearly given up on wiping it out of my eye. Wasn't as though I could really see anyway.

The only option at the end of this straightaway was to turn right. My footing nearly slipped across the gravel, and I turned in a wide arc. A vise locked onto my arm, holding me firmly in place.

There he was again, his eyes dead. But how had he gotten here before me? I hadn't even heard him.

My throat went dry. "L-let go," I choked out, trying to tear my arm away.

He didn't respond except for the slight twist of my arm. I heard a pop, and the limb seemed to come loose, detach.

"Shit!" I screamed as the pain set in. Throwing a wild punch with my good arm, I connected with his nose, which took up a good portion of his face. It crunched satisfyingly under the blow as his grip loosened.

"Ha!" I yelled as I tore away. "Suck it!"

His eyes still remained the same hollow pits as blood poured from his splattered nose.

_Weirdo. _

I needed to do something to pop my shoulder back into joint, but that was going to hurt like hell, so I cradled it with my other arm instead. It was jostled as a ran, aching sharply as a reminder with each step.

If I could get back to the beginning, maybe I could find my gun. If I could get back to the beginning, maybe I could get the hell out.

Whether I made if far enough away or not, I had to stop. I collapsed against the wall, my chest aching from the cool night air. It was getting colder, and I'd been running around in circles for so long. I was just so exhausted. My shoulder felt like it had been hit with an ax. This just wasn't my night.

After a moment trying to catch my breath, I pushed myself off the wall and continued forward at a crawl. Once I got out of here, I'd just go to the doctor and ask him to knock me out while he stitched me back up. Then I could finally sleep.

The crazy guy's footsteps were somewhere behind me, but they weren't close enough for me to be afraid. Again, I considered trying to climb the walls, but with my arm out of commission, there wasn't a chance. The dark seemed to close in around me as the cold sank into my skin. The blood streaming down my face was the only thing that seemed warm.

My feet were dragging so badly that I nearly tripped over whatever it was that made a clattering across the ground from being kicked. My gun maybe? I sure hoped so.

I dropped to my hands and knees to feel around ahead of me. It was costing me more time, but it was worth it to find something useful. I finally made contact with it and grabbed hold. A rock. Well...a rock could be useful. It was about the size of a baseball, a good solid stone. Yeah, it could be useful.

I waited, my legs shaking under me no matter how much I begged them not to. He was getting closer- no, he was to my left. Was he behind me?

_Breathe. Breathe._

I saw him just before he jumped down from the top of the wall beside me, but I didn't have the time to move out of the way. His knee hit the middle of my chest, and I fell back to the ground in quiet surprise.

_Don't breathe!_

Even though I tried to brace myself, when all his weight crushed me, the air was sucked from my lungs. My skull smacked against the stone slab, sending a vicious crack ringing through my ears. My vision filled with an even darker black than what was surrounding me, and when his hands encircled my neck, the darkness spread like a poison through my body. I already didn't have any air.

My right arm lay useless at my side, but the pain was at least beginning to fade. Everything was fading.

_Tired._

_I'm so tired._

But if I went to sleep, then I'd never get out of the maze.

My twitching hand clutched the stone, as if to remind me it was there. Without thought, I grabbed it and swung it out in as wide of an arc as I could manage. I hit something. I wasn't sure what or how hard, but I did.

I sudden lungful of air brought be back from the edge of consciousness, and I saw nothing but the nighttime stars.

_Pretty._

I dozed off there, awakened only when I was shaken hard enough. "Daiba," the captain snapped in my ear as he held me upright. "What did you do?"

What _did_ I do? I wasn't really sure.

"Well...one...two-"

There was this weird, hollow popping noise, followed by a screamed batch of curses. It took me a moment to realize they were coming from my mouth.

"Better?" the captain questioned, his eye firm as he stared me down.

I rolled my shoulder a few times to test it. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt anymore. "Yeah," I sighed. "Thanks."

He nodded. "Did you hit your head?" He sounded like he was trying to assess the situation instead of scolding me. Weird.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Then don't fall asleep again. You may have a concussion."

"Yes sir."

"Any other problems?"

"No sir."

"Can you stand, or do you need help?"

"I've got it." I almost did anyway. He had to keep me from losing my balance once I'd regained my feet, but then I was stable enough.

I was still in the same place as where I'd fallen asleep and where that creep had attacked me. Harlock stepped away from me and to the creep lying on the ground barely five feet away. "Kill him," I hissed.

The captain threw me a curious glance over his shoulder before nudging the guy with his boot. "Oye, Zero, did you attack my crewman? You get what you deserve then."

"Do what?" a soft grumble responded him.

I crept up behind the captain and peered around him to see the guy slowly waking up. He started to rub his head, but stopped with a heavy wince. "What happened?" Harlock questioned.

"He tried to murder me, the creepy bastard," I growled.

Zero looked to me in a disturbed confusion. "Naw, I did not. There was this light... this flashing light..."

"You were hypnotized," Harlock concluded matter-of-factly.

"Oh...hm. I'll try not to do that again."

"I still say we kill him," I grumbled.

"He was supposed to kill me," the captain explained, "but you wandered in here first, because you were more easily drawn in by the subliminal notes telling you to."

"I'm confused," I frowned.

"Me too," Zero agreed.

"Well," the captain shrugged. "Someone wanted me dead. It's pretty common."

True enough. Zero slowly nodded in agreement.

"We'd better get the two of you back so we can make sure you aren't bleeding internally or anything," the captain decided. He sounded particularly unconcerned. As an afterthought, he handed me my gun. "Don't lose it again."

Zero was feeling at his nose, scowling. "Did you break my nose?"

"I did," I smirked. _I also told you to suck it, but that's kind of weird to say._

"Hm." He braced himself and snapped it back into place, muttering something about a machine doctor. I winced for him.

"We may have to carry him," the captain said, grabbing one of Zero's arms. "Take the other arm."

"I don't want to touch him," I pouted. "He tried to murder me!"

"And you tried to murder him. Now quit arguing and help me carry him."

"I don't need your help," Zero mumbled as he unsteadily tried to find his footing. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but his pupils may have been different sizes.

Giving in, I walked under his other arm as though I would be able to drape it over my shoulder and help carry him. He was too damn tall.

"You seem like a good kid," he smiled. "Sorry I tried to kill you."

"I hope your nose is permanently crooked," I spat.

He snorted. "It would probably be an improvement. Do we know how to get out of here?"

The captain stared ahead of us, looking as though he would say a firm yes. "...maybe," he finally answered.

* * *

**In the next one, the 999 crew celebrate Halloween. I should switch this to a crossover. That would make more sense.**


	6. Tricked (GE999-verse)

**Blah, dumb fluff. I'm not that great at dumb fluff still. Trying to get better. This one was requested by Hanaako: "Maetel, Conductor (he gets a day off) and Tetsuro decorate the train and prank each other!"**

* * *

The conductor swore he didn't remember agreeing to this.

"The next stop is wherever I want!" Tetsuro cried with an over dramatic salute. The cap was too big and fell over one of his eyes no matter how many times he straightened it. The outfit too was a bit too big, the sleeves flopping over the mis-sized gloves. He'd needed to keep his own shoes, so he didn't trip over them, but he'd rolled up the hems of the pants after a few trips had occurred anyway.

He was still better off than the conductor, who had been forced into the holey cloak and hat, which were a bit too small. They each still had their underclothes, mis-matched as they were, but the Conductor was absolutely sure he hadn't agreed to this.

"Now can we change back?" he attempted. "I'm not sure this is allowed."

"No!" Tetsuro huffed as he climbed up the side of the train. "It's my costume. I'm a conductor!"

"A-and I'm you?"

"Yeah." They hadn't had many options for costumes aboard the 999, and Tetsuro had insisted that they could just switch clothes in order to celebrate the holiday. Then he'd also added that they needed to decorate the train while at their current stop.

"I-I don't think you should be up there," the conductor gasped as Tetsuro plopped himself onto the top of the train. "You could fall!"

"I'll be fine!" He leaned over the edge to paint a window orange. "You should come up and help!"

"I'll help from down here, thank you. That will wash off, right?" He leaned his weight nervously between his feet, still uncertain about playing around with the outside of the train. What was with this holiday?

"Yeah, I made sure to get the kind that wouldn't stain. Don't worry."

The conductor truly didn't understand. First Tetsuro needed a costume, then he needed decorations inside the train, then outside. And he want pumpkins of all things! They didn't have any pumpkins! So he'd opted to paint them on the outside instead.

"Why are you painting a face on that pumpkin?" the conductor questioned when he finally realized what Tetsuro was using the black paint for.

"Because he's a Jack-o-lantern," Tetsuro grinned, much like the wry face he was painting. "You should make one too. I'll make one that looks like you next."

The conductor sighed. "No thank you." It may have been his day off, but he still would have preferred working. There were so many things to do.

"You should paint one, Mr. Conductor," Maetel agreed as she calmly descended the stairs to the grassy planet below. "Get into the spirit of things."

Tetsuro and the conductor blinked at her outfit, speckled with white paint. "You're space!" Tetsuro laughed.

She smiled with a slight nod. "We didn't have many materials, so I did what I could. I thought it fit the sort-of theme we had going on."

"Y-you look very nice, Miss Maetel," the conductor stuttered.

"Thank you. You look very...like Tetsuro." She was quite amused by their clothing swap, laughing as Tetsuro saluted and barked an impersonation of their conductor. "Oh, be polite," she scolded him playfully.

"Hey, it was accurate!" he argued. "Now come help me paint!"

Maetel helped coerce the conductor into painting with them, every few windows on the lower-class cars. Maetel's Jack-o-lanterns were significantly neater than the boys', just as her makeshift spiders and cobwebs that decorated the insides were better. Tetsuro wasn't all that concerned with quality though, and Maetel still liked his messy faces. She also complimented the conductor's despite his wobbly mouths.

"I just wish we had some candy," Tetsuro huffed once they'd finished. He sat back on the roof of the train twirling his paintbrush. This hadn't been a very exciting planet, and painting the train had been much more fun, but it was hardly a proper Halloween without candy.

"Isn't it 'trick _or_ treat?'" Maetel reminded him.

"Oh yeah!" He grinned broadly at the idea. He could certainly come up with a few good tricks.

The conductor on the other hand, was less enthusiastic about the idea. "Tricks?" he questioned hesitantly.

"Oh yes," Maetel smiled. "If someone can't give you candy, I believe the proper custom is to play a prank on them."

"N-no pranks!" he cried. That was surely against some sort of rule, and he was positive he'd be the one getting the brunt of it.

"Aw come on," Tetsuro grumbled. "You can't order us around today. I'm the conductor! And you're off duty."

"We won't cause too much harm," Maetel agreed. "So let the games begin."

Things seemed relatively calm after that, at least as far as the conductor could tell. He hoped they'd both forgotten about it. The train was enough of a mess as things were. Oh, if headquarters found out about this...

He strolled through the train, absolutely not on duty. He was most certainly taking his day off. Someone had left their cake out in the dining car, and it was only common courtesy to throw it away for them. It was odd for a piece of cake to just be sitting out, untouched without anything else around it, but no matter. He simply picked it up and carried it toward the trash. What a waste.

"No!" Tetsuro howled, leaping out from under a table.

The conductor jumped so much from the surprise that the cake landed on the floor along with the plate it had been sitting on.

"You were supposed to eat it!" the boy continued despite that.

"W-why?"

"Because it's cake," he huffed. "Well, okay, it's not really cake."

"Wh...what is it?" the conductor asked, unsure if he wanted to know.

"It's a sponge. I just iced it." Walking over, he picked up the iced sponge and licked some of the icing off as the conductor cringed at the sight. "I dunno any good pranks. Do you?"

"No...I've never pranked anyone before."

Tetsuro thought for a moment, frowning. "Do you think Maetel would eat this cake if I did it again? Or maybe I could tape the light switches so that they don't turn on when she tries to flip them!"

"Er, perhaps you should try something else."

"Like what?"

"Well, I don't believe it's right to prank Miss Maetel. You should leave her be." She wasn't the type to prank them, after all. She was too much of a lady. The conductor was sure it would simply be rude to do something to her.

"I'll think of something," Tetsuro muttered.

With a sigh, the conductor turned back and headed for the passenger cars. As he slid open the door, a ear-splitting gunshot seemed to explode from it. He fell back in a startled terror only to see Maetel smiling at him from a seat in the car. "I apologize," she said. "I couldn't resist."

Tetsuro started toward her with a laugh. "What did you do?"

"I tied a popper to the handle." As he crossed the threshold, his foot caught on something. "And I put a tripwire across the doorway." He fell on his face as the tripwire offered some give, pulling a bucket of water down with it that drenched the boy. "I do like the old-fashioned ones," she concluded.

The conductor decided that Maetel was still a lady, but she was a frightening one. He would have to think of a way to get her back.

Tetsuro had the same idea, and while Maetel calmly sipped her tea, they swore their revenge. This planet had a long day, and it would be a dangerous Halloween.

* * *

**In the next fic, the Galaxy Railways crew goes to investivgate a spooky train. So spooky.**


	7. Swallowed (GR-verse)

**I love writing Galaxy Railways fics. I really need to do more of them. I had high hopes for this one, but I felt like it kind of fell apart on me. Bonus points to anyone who gets the plot point I blatantly stole from** **_Baccano!_**

**This one was requested by my pal Blusey:** **"Sirius Platoon being called into action to help a train that sent out a distress call... but the train's been lost since before Wataru died."**

* * *

From the moment construction was complete on the first line of the railways, there were already rumors. Legends were created about every line, every train. You'd hear about the ghost you could see in just the right spot out on line 47 or the monster that lived under the 482. We'd heard them all, and sometimes I'd find one to be true. It made me wonder if the railway was around before we even built it.

"Okay-okay," David said, waving his hand to shut us up. He sat backward in his chair due to the informality of this mission. No one was expecting much out of it, and everyone was pretty laid back. "But have you heard about the 354?"

"Sure," I shrugged. "My dad was assigned to recover it, and he came home and told us about how they didn't find anything." Ghost trains usually didn't get us anywhere but to an empty space with no evidence, and the 354 was a famously hated ghost train by the SDF.

"What's so special about it?" Louise frowned. "Every time you bring it up around people, they just grumble about it. What happened to it exactly?"

"No one knows," David sang spookily. We all rolled our eyes.

"It was assumed it was simply lost to a wormhole," Captain Bulge explained. He'd likely been on the recovery mission with my dad and didn't look excited about having to chase more rabbits. "It's been a cold case for a long time, since before I joined the SDF. Some people guess that it fell through a knot in time and was unable to send out a distress call due to the older equipment being faulty. That's the reasoning for why it appears randomly across space. It's just a projection through time and not the real train, just an image. That's why it always just disappears before we get there. Just a fragment stuck in time."

"So why are we even bothering to go take a look at it then?" Louise huffed. "There are more important things we could be attending to."

I wasn't sure what she was talking about unless she meant having a day off.

"The directors are just curious, I suppose, and we can't exactly ignore a train sending out a distress signal. Maybe we'll get lucky. Not sure if I'd want to actually come face-to-face with that train though. I can't say it wouldn't take us with it when it disappears again."

"You might be right, Captain," Bruce spoke, his voice low and even as always. "I heard a different story about that train. Have any of you ever heard of the Rail Tracer?"

David of all people spoke against it, looking genuinely concerned. "You know it's bad luck to tell that story on a train."

"Well that's the point of the story isn't it?" Bruce smirked.

Our curiosities were easily piqued by something that could help ease the boredom of the ride, and Louise and I requested for the story in unison. As Bruce spoke, we leaned in closer with each word.

"They say it's been around since the first rails were laid out on Earth. No one knows exactly what it looks like, but it's said to be a monster, and it apparently loves passenger trains, not that it's picky. Once it sets its sights on a train, it follows along on the rails, coming closer and closer until it catches up. There's no outrunning it. It starts at the cage and works its way toward the engine, devouring every living thing in its path. In the end, all that's left is the empty cars still rolling down the track. Oh, and the way to get the Rail Tracer to come after your train is to tell this story to someone while on it."

"Aw, come on, Bruce," I snorted. "I hate stories like that. Should've known you'd try to make up something scary."

He chuckled softly with a lazy smirk. "Just telling you what I heard."

"Sounds like the type of story little kids tell on their first train ride to freak each other out," Louise hummed thoughtfully. "I remember hearing something like that. 'Everyone who hears this story dies' or something. Kind of silly when you think about it. Everyone dies eventually."

When we finally reached the coordinates we'd gotten for the 354, we were all startled to actually have it show up on our monitors. It was really there. Huh.

It certainly looked its age, one of the boxy, squared steam engines built around the same time as Big 1, but not built to last near as long. Most of the models like it had been decommissioned and scrapped, and none were still in use. It certainly shouldn't have existed.

"It's beautiful," Louise murmured, in awe of the royal purple coloring. It must have been a luxury passenger train for the high-class.

"She sure looks pretty on the outside, and as far as I can tell she's not in bad order," David said as he ran a few dozen scans on it. "It's certainly an old model, but it seems stable enough. There's no oxygen, so we'll need suits, but there's gravity. I don't see any abnormalities otherwise. There're no signs of life either," he added as an afterthought. "Put on the blue light, and we can take a look at her."

The blue light was a signal to any other trains that we were working on the one in bad order, but no one should have been coming this way since we'd shut down the line for the time-being.

The captain stared at the train, his expression unreadable. "Alright, we're going to take a look at the inside. We can't tell anything from here. Bruce, go with Manabu. David, you're with Louise. Stick close. Don't ever get out of each other's sight. Yuki and I will continue scanning the ship should it suddenly shift in any way."

He obviously didn't like the looks of things, and if the captain didn't have a good feeling about something, that didn't bode well for us. "It'll be fine," Bruce shrugged as we headed for the door. "Not scared of the story, are you, Captain?"

If he answered, we didn't hear as the door closed behind us. I did feel anxious, but I always had at least some anxiety before a mission. It was important to keep on your toes, and I wasn't planning on getting stabbed again.

Once we'd gotten our gear on and Big 1 was parked right next to the 354, David and Louise jumped out onto the rear car, which was an observation-type largely made up of windows. Bruce and I got onto the first passenger car at the front, headed to first examine the engine.

There was no one inside, but there were signs that there had been at one time. It was a sitting car with purses and briefcases still settled on seats. The honey wood walls had dulled over time. There wasn't much dust in the air of the train, so not much was able to collect, but it was easy to see against the dark upholstery of the seats.

"All clear for us," David said through our earpieces. "No signs of anything ugly."

"Yeah, same here," I frowned. "Weird. I was at least expecting something. None of the passengers were ever recovered right?"

"That's right," Louise answered softly. Bruce threw me an amused smirk that I chose to ignore. He and his stupid monster would not get the better of me. Now wasn't the time for jokes like that.

"It's weird how a train can just disappear and reappear at will," I said halfway to myself. "I mean, this doesn't seem like a ghost train." I knew that from experience.

"Well, check the control room. Maybe there's some hint there," David answered.

The control and wiring were weird, but we weren't sure how weird. Neither Bruce nor I had any experience with the old model, but the lights were all still on. Everything was in working order. That, we knew, shouldn't have been the case.

"Maybe someone's been working with it and controls it remotely?" Louise guessed. It was our most reasonable explanation. Their examination of the back few cars hadn't returned any leads.

We sent a few pictures of the guts of the engine and control room to the captain and started back into our portion of the passenger cars. "It's just so quiet," Louise said at one point just to break the silence and remind us that we could talk to each other. Still, we didn't go back to speaking. There wasn't anything to say. The people who had ridden this were likely all dead, but at least the train wasn't full of bodies for once. It was some sort of consolation if there was any.

"Come back," the captain broke in suddenly as we moved on to only the fourth car.

"What is it?" Bruce demanded.

"I don't know, but the inside of that train is wrong. It's completely wrong. That's not what the inside of the 354 looked like."

That didn't make any sense. Hell, that wasn't possible. "So what train are we on? People can't just make whole trains and send them out without us noticing." They had to use our stations, and we had records at all our stations. There was simply no way.

"I know, but just come back," Bulge snapped. He was scared. That meant we all needed to be.

When Louise spoke, she didn't sound scared, only strangely distant. "Captain…there's something in the cage." The cage was the last car, the observational.

"I-I can see it," the captain answered.

Louise spoke again, her voice even softer from fear. "The doors won't open, Captain. It's in the car next to ours now."

Bruce was pale. If this was a joke, it wasn't funny, but it needed to be a joke. It couldn't be real. "What is it?" I asked.

"Shoot it," Bruce added.

"Get the hell out of there," the captain hissed.

"All the doors are locked," David said. He sounded determined enough to hide his fear. "All the windows are closed and bolted. I don't think…it's on the train. I think it _is_ the train."

I wanted to know what they were seeing. I wanted to get to them. I wanted to make sure they were safe, and we tried. We tried. Our door was locked too. The windows couldn't be broken. Bruce nearly broke his gun and his elbow trying. This wasn't a train. It was some sort of camouflage, lying in wait. We'd stepped right into the jaws of an angler fish, chasing an interesting little light. But there had to be a way out…right?

The lights shut off in our car just as I heard the wild sounds of gunfire from our friends'. Big 1 also sounded off the familiar chorus of gunshots, but if the enraged growl of the captain was any indicator, it wasn't having any effect. "You can't kill it," Louise choked. "Oh God, you can't kill it."

"Bruce, Manabu, you have to run. Get out of here now," David begged.

Then they went quiet. It was so quiet here. I felt strangely weak and detached. "What do we do, Bruce?" I asked distantly. He was still trying to get Louise and David to respond, but he finally gave up to answer me as he tried the door again.

"We keep fighting and kill whatever this thing is," he decided. "I think our communications are down."

Either that or everyone on the other end was gone. Bruce was being strangely optimistic, but I just felt lost. When he turned to me, his eyes widened in a startled fear. He lunged for my arm, trying to pull me away from something, but I stopped short as the wire around my neck tightened against it.

"Let go of him!" Bruce roared at whatever it was. He continued pulling on me in an odd game of tug-of-war that had me close to blacking out. I should have fought or done something, but I couldn't muster the energy. Whatever was holding me around my neck was draining me, I guessed. Well…damn.

The entire car morphed in my hazy vision. For a moment I thought it was just me blacking out, but the walls and floor were all sinking and swimming in a black fog. The train was alive, and it was simply going to consume us.

"Manabu, stay awake, damnit!" Bruce yelled.

I could barely see him, a hazy outline right in front of me. He must have been shooting at something, because I vaguely heard the piercing sound of gun blasts from somewhere. An arm of the darkness rose up behind him, dripping with a vile sludge and smoking. Was that what had a hold of me?

It reached for him, but I wouldn't dare let something like that near Bruce. My hand found my gun, my working gun, and I managed to pull it from the holster. "Move," I ordered in a pained wheeze.

Bruce took a startled step out of the way, losing his grip on my arm in the process, but I shot that damn thing right before I was dragged back against the wall. The hand wasn't hit by the bright laser blast. It simply swam away from it, as though recoiling in fear. "Afraid of the light?" I murmured with a soft laugh. It was so cold. I could feel it even through my suit as I sank into it. So there was no victory here.

I wondered if Mom would be alright. It wouldn't be fair to her if I died. It wouldn't be fair for her to be alone. I reached out my hand through the cold sinking into my heart. Maybe someone would grab me and haul me out. Maybe Bruce was still alive.

My strength gave out. My arm fell. It was all so dark.

"M…bu…not…ow…sca…ike…t."

Was that supposed to make sense? One of my eyelids dragged open. The other felt too heavy, so I just left it closed. This didn't feel like heaven or hell. I was too tired for that. Maybe it could have been hell, but I didn't think the captain deserved to be there, and he was standing over me. He looked stressed. He probably needed sleep too.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

I managed to mouth the words "I don't know." It was the most I could do.

"The creature tried to shut down your body," Yuki said. She sounded far away. "You'll be recovering for a while."

The creature? We still didn't know what it was. "It dead?" I mouthed.

"I don't know," the captain confessed. "As soon as we got all of you out, we left and a different platoon was sent to take over. We were too busy trying to restart your heart to worry about killing it at the time."

Oh.

He'd said "all of you." "Got us out?" I questioned.

"Yeah, I noticed it shrank back when the blue light hit it, so as a last ditch effort we tried shining all the lights from the train on it that we could. Then we fished you all out of space."

I breathed a laugh. It seemed like such a stupid way to win, but we'd won. Score one for the good guys.

I managed to roll my head over and see them, looking just as tired as I felt. Our communicators really must have gone out. For once, Bruce's optimism was actually right.

"You know," Bruce said, seated on a cot beside mine. "The way to make sure the rail tracer doesn't attack you is to believe in it."

"I hate your stupid story," Louise grumbled.

"I told him it was bad luck," David added. "But my good luck won out in the end."

"Yes, David," the captain grumbled. "But next time you put a floodlight on my train, tell me about it first."

"It was supposed to be a surprise present."

"What can we even use that for?" Louise muttered. "Besides this one time."

Bruce reached over and lightly punched my arm, telling me I wasn't allowed to be stupid anymore and get myself killed. Louise reminded him that it was obviously his fault for summoning the rail tracer, and David said we needed to perform a few rituals to make sure Big 1 was safe from it.

Maybe he was onto something. He did look the healthiest out of all of us. I needed to remember to start being superstitious. I needed to remember to go visit Mom soon too.

* * *

**You don't know how much I wanted to give this one a bad ending, but then I thought about Kanna and I felt guilty.**

**The next fic has Harlock/Zero, but mostly it's just them arguing like five year-olds. They make good parents. I'm being the slightest bit sarcastic.**


	8. Bicker (CWZ AU MxM)

**Requested by the Sailor-Prince: "KIDS AU! AS IN, ZERO AND HARLOCK ARE PARENTS NOT THEM BEING KIDS. BOTH OF THEM BICKERING AND FIGHTING OVER WHAT THEIR CHILD'S FIRST HALLOWEEN COSTUME WILL BE."**

**I have no idea what this is, I just don't even know what I wrote.**

* * *

"You're a dead man, Harlock," Zero growled. "A dead man."

"At least I'm not some conformist," Harlock responded quickly. He tilted his jaw up to feel taller. "At least I can think for myself."

Zero's voice rose as his anger flared. "Oh please. I would have never thought it, but you're just a stickler for the rules. Can't handle anything that isn't manly. You're just being sexist."

"I'm not being sexist!" the brunet snapped in offense as he jumped up from his seat and slammed his hands down onto the table. "You're blowing this out of proportion!"

"You're the one that refused to listen to my ideas in the first place!" Zero joined him, standing and yelling across the flimsy barrier between them. "You're the one that made a big deal out of it to begin with!"

"He's not even going to remember it, so why does it matter!?"

"Why does it matter!? Why can't I have my way!?"

"Because I want to have my way! And your way is terrible!"

Just as they were about to lunge across the table and go to blows, the harsh wail of a child filled the air. Both men whipped around in terror and stared at their two year-old.

He sat in the doorway, reaching his hands out toward them as tears rolled down his face. "Da-!" he gasped between wails. Harlock could only think that this was Zero's fault, while the older man thought the opposite.

Zero reached the distressed boy first, scooping him up into a careful hug. "What are you doing up, baby? It's bedtime."

Tadashi grabbed at his face, tugging on his cheeks with rosy, pudgy hands. The brunet's hair was a wild mess from tossing and turning in his sleep, and it stuck up at odd angles. "Daddy," he hiccupped, calming himself since he'd gotten his way. "No!"

They had a rule that Tadashi was not supposed to use "no" as a command, but they both understood. "Sorry," Harlock grumbled as he stepped up to attempt fixing the boy's hair. "It's not like we're going to get a divorce over a stupid Halloween costume but-"

"We don't use the word stupid," Zero scolded, glaring at his partner. "Or divorce," he added, quieter.

Harlock smiled as Tadashi reached up to pat at his hands, grabbing hold of his thumb. "Oh, don't put the poor kid in a bubble. You're going to turn him into a pansy."

"See, there you go making remarks like that again," Zero fumed, his temperature only rising further when Harlock kissed his cheek.

The shorter man rested his chin on his partner's shoulder, smiling easily as his baby smiled in return. "Listen, I don't care whether our kid is a boy or a girl or whatever. They're not going to be a pansy."

"But what if they want to be?" Zero sighed, tired of trying understand Harlock's reasoning.

"Then they're just going to have to suck it up and be a man. Being a man isn't about sex. It's about state of mind."

The elder was unimpressed. "I think you're just an idiot, and use the word gender around the little one."

Unfazed, the outlaw's face drew into a lazy smirk. "I'll have him cussing like a sailor before he's ten. Just you wait."

"Not if I kill you before then," Zero warned lowly.

"No!" Tadashi decided, lightly smacking both of his fathers on the cheek.

"We don't hit," Zero responded immediately.

Harlock disagreed. "Good boy. Better practice that swinging arm."

Zero considered practicing his swinging arm, but he didn't want to be a hypocrite. "Baby," he began, yanking the subject back to its beginning. "What would you like to dress up as for Halloween?"

Tadashi was so busy trying to chew on his hand that he could only stare in confusion at his sleepy dad. Happy dad also looked to him for an answer to a question he couldn't make heads or tails of. His dads made no sense.

"You could be a man-eating werewolf," happy dad attempted.

"Or a policeman," sleepy dad interjected.

"Or you could be something actually cool, like a pirate."

"Pirates are so old-fashioned. He could be a prince."

"How are princes not old-fashioned if pirates are?"

Tadashi stared at the wall as they continued to argue. He liked that wall. It had lots of colors on it. And there was some juice on the table in funny cups. He wanted juice.

"He can't be something scary. He'll scare himself," sleepy dad was saying.

"It's all rubber and fabric," happy dad shrugged. "As long as he realizes that, he'll be fine. He'd make a really cute zombie."

"I don't like to think about him being a zombie," Zero answered nervously, squeezing the boy closer. Tadashi gave a soft squeak before reaching out his saliva-covered hand toward the kitchen table.

"Juice," he decided, grabbing at the air.

Zero's brows shot up. "T-that juice isn't for little ones."

"Give it a few years, kiddo," Harlock smiled. "It's actually pretty gross stuff. Now about your costume…"

"Juice!" Tadashi insisted.

Zero thought for a moment, deciding it was worth it to break one of his rules about bedtime. "How about, you tell us what you want to be, and we'll let you have some juice before bed."

Tadashi stared awestruck. Juice before bed? What he wanted to be? "I wanna be…juice."

For a minute, Harlock and Zero looked at each other, mildly confused but mostly in thought. "Do you think we could buy a juice costume?" the elder wondered.

"Maybe…not sure why we'd want to." Harlock wasn't thrilled with the idea. Was it so much to ask for his kid to have a cool costume? "Are you sure you don't want to be a zombie…or a prince or something?"

As though his mind was stuck, Tadashi would accept no other idea. "I like juice. Juice."

Resting him on one hip, Zero carried him to the fridge. "What kind of juice?"

"Uh…lellow."

"Yellow juice?"

Tadashi nodded.

"You mean orange juice, baby?" Harlock asked.

Again, Tadashi nodded. He didn't really know what they were talking about. Any juice was good.

After he finally got his sippy cup and was lightly tossed into bed by Happy Dad, he was already beginning to doze. His attempts to drink would often miss him mouth, and he didn't protest when the cup was pulled from his hands.

Both of his fathers kissed his forehead, and he'd zonked out before they'd even left the room, his hair already becoming a new mess against the pillow.

"We can dress him up as a fairy princess for all I care," Harlock hissed as he shut the door behind them. "But we are not dressing him up as orange juice."

He realized his mistake as his partner became thoughtful, a small smile warming his features. "A fairy princess would be cute."

"No, no I was just using an example-!"

"Aww, but think about him in a little dress with little wings," Zero cooed. "He can be a fairy prince."

"He's never going to agree to that!" Harlock protested.

Holding up the sippy cup, Zero smirked and gave it a slight shake. "He will if I bribe him. Thanks for the idea."

There just wasn no winning this round for Harlock. But in retaliation, he grabbed the collar of the taller man's shirt and yanked him down into a kiss. "Anytime," he smirked at the vibrant blush coating Zero's cheeks.

* * *

**In the next fic, Daiba is stupid. I know, it's surprising. Dadlock to the recue.**


	9. Hysterics (SPCH-verse)

**This one was a really great idea by PinkTeaRose/StainedLace: "Harlock gets a frantic call from Daiba screaming in terror and when he goes to rescue him, he finds Daiba decided to go into a haunted house (like Frightland and Terror Behind the Walls) and was only scared sh*tless from it." (Psst, she's also writing a really fantastic fic where Daiba is a big scared girl. You should go look at it. It's called Arcadia Misadventures: Ghost Ship).**

**Needless to say, I butchered the lovely idea. Okay, I've never actually been in a haunted house before because I'm a huge baby like Daiba, so I made some assumptions here. Honestly, I don't even know what canon is anymore.**

* * *

The nice parts about stopping on populated planets other than Earth were the smaller batches of authority figures trying to arrest them and rarer Mazone attacks. Things were so peaceful where they resupplied. Nice and peaceful.

"Captain, they're going to kill me! Captain! Oh my God, Captain, there's no way out of here."

Harlock nearly fell over from the sudden wailing in his ear. He was used to Daiba screaming bloody murder when they were together on some sort of mission. Honestly, he'd come to expect his youngest crewman to call for help, but it wasn't supposed to happen while on a routine stop.

"Daiba?" he questioned, placing his hand to the bug in his ear to speak through to his crewman. "What's going on?" Immediately, he stepped out from the bar. The streets outside were dusty, wind whipping up the desert climate to cling to his hair and face. But the air was crisp enough to sink through his clothes.

He wracked his brain for Daiba's position as he glanced down each length of the street. They'd all gone their separate ways after they'd restocked, so he has no way of knowing exactly where the teen had run off to without tracking him.

"T-they're going to kill me," Daiba repeated in terror. He sounded like he was trembling wildly. Even if he was a bit of a coward at times, Daiba didn't just shake from fear without something genuinely frightening to get him to that point.

Harlock pressed the small buttons on his communicator until a holographic map popped up in front of his eye. He never liked using the function because, well, he only had one eye available to check where he was going, and unless he stood still, he wasn't going to be able to use the map. Standing still was costing him time.

But the map showed that Daiba couldn't have been more than a few blocks away, judging by the distance. "Where are you exactly?" the captain questioned, hoping for a straight answer. His terrified crewman didn't seem to keen on giving them.

"Leave me alone!" Daiba howled at whatever it was closing in on him.

Flicking off the map, Harlock rushed off toward the vague direction the little green blip identifying his crewman had been. "Where's your gun?" he demanded as he ran.

There was some sort of crashing noise, like a large beam toppling down. Daiba gave a high, terrified whine. "T-they t-took it!" he squeaked.

"And you let them?" Harlock snapped in confusion.

"Well…yeah."

The captain nearly stopped in his tracks for the sheer fact that Daiba deserved whatever was coming to him for pulling a stunt like that. Still, he couldn't outright let the teen die. "Daiba, I'm going to solder that gun to your hand."

His answer was simply a whine that made the blond sound much younger and smaller than Harlock was accustomed to. "I'm scared," the boy whimpered. The fact that he was admitting it meant things were bad.

"You can't run?" the captain wasn't fond of the idea, but it was better than having to carry a body back to the ship.

Daiba spoke through a hysterical laugh. "M-my legs won't move."

"Listen to me," Harlock growled as he stopped to bring up the map again. "You get up right now, and you run. It's better than hiding. Daiba, you'd better not be hiding."

"What else should I do?" the teen hissed. "They can't see me if I'm in here."

"What _are _you hiding from?" He placed Daiba's position, diagonally across the street from his own. Flicking off the screen, he stared.

"_Clowns,_" Daiba whispered as though saying their name would summon them to attack.

Harlock was surprised only because he wasn't truly surprised by what he found. "If they aren't actually coming at you with weapons and legitimately trying to tear you open, we're going to have problems."

A somewhat rundown haunted house attraction sat across the street, and Harlock calmly crossed over to it. He tried to tell himself it would be nice to get out of the cold and the constant sand blowing in his mouth, but he'd been much happier in the bar.

"But they are, Captain," Daiba insisted. He did sound genuinely terrified.

"Alright, I'm coming. Just stay put."

The bored-looking girl behind the counter glanced up at the pirate as he stepped up to the ticket window. "Nice costume," she remarked. He couldn't tell whether or not she was being genuine, but he suddenly realized that it was, in fact, Halloween.

"It seems one of my crew is inside and-"

"The one having a breakdown?" she frowned. "We've tried coaxing him out. Never had such a huge wuss before."

Harlock scratched the back of his neck, regretting his admission of a connection to the teen. "Is there a way I can just go in and get him?"

"Yeah-yeah," she sighed. "But he destroyed a couple set pieces, and someone's gotta pay for those getting fixed."

The captain decided that Daiba would need to shine his weapons and his boots and clean the Arcadia top to bottom for at least a week. Slamming an excess of cosmo dubloons down on the counter, he grudgingly asked to be led to his youngest crewman.

A young man that he guessed was supposed to be a zombie took him through the back entrance and through a few gory rooms, talking all the while. "Yeah, the clowns were having a bit too much fun harassing the kid. He obviously had some sort of wacked-out phobia, and they thought it was pretty funny, especially since it looked like a convincing scene for the other customers. Don't get a lot of interesting stuff around here, ya know? Fun to mess with outsiders. Everyone here knows each other so it's harder to get real scared. We finally got the guys to let up a couple minutes ago, and we even moved 'em to another room, but the kid still won't come out. Managers can't convince him that clowns aren't going to come out. Hell, he won't even listen to us. He just kept talking to someone else." He glanced back over his shoulder. "Guess that was you. Thought he was going crazy and talking to the things in his head. We were all getting' kinda worried."

"I know the point is to get scared," Harlock sighed. "But maybe scaring someone so much that they hide and are too petrified to run isn't the best idea."

"Well, he talked a big game when he was outside and did pretty well through most of the rest of the course. Maybe we could put some workers with a bit more sympathy as the clowns."

The room they finally ended up in didn't have much in terms of gory design like the others. It was a dim, cramped space that had been made even smaller by the set pieces falling over in Daiba's rush to escape his "attackers." Against one wall, a black curtain had been torn down to reveal a door. A woman without a costume was standing beside it and tiredly calling through. "Listen, hun, it's alright now. We even turned up the lights. You can see now. It's darker in there than it is out here. There are no clowns."

No one answered her, and she looked to the new arrivals for help.

"Daiba," Harlock called, walking up to the door and calmly attempting to yank it open. The teen had done a good job of jamming it somehow. "Daiba, it's me, and if you don't open the door, I'm going to leave you here."

There was a small scuffling, and this time Harlock was able to turn the knob and open it. His youngest crewman was huddled in a ball in the back corner of the utility closet. His hands were over his head, his eyes pressed to his knees. "Come on," his captain commanded flatly. "It's going to be a long week for you."

But for now he had to be nice. Sometimes fear did funny things to people, and scolding the teen at this point wasn't likely to help. Daiba twitchily uncurled and crawled out on all fours. Before Harlock could get onto him, he slipped behind his captain's legs, grabbed the man's cape, and wrapped it around himself, still visibly shaking. He'd obviously been crying, and Harlock could only reach down and grab the teen's arm, dragging him into a standing position.

Still, Daiba kept hold of the cape, burying his face in it to keep from seeing anything. It would have been easy to tell him off then. It would have been easy to tell him off when they picked up his gun from the ticket counter. It would have been nothing to just snap at him as soon as they returned to the Arcadia, for acting like an idiot, for destroying property, and for just forcing his captain to leave the bar in the middle of a round.

Instead Harlock led him to the showers, shoving him in and throwing a set of pajamas his way. "When you're done, I'll have a list of chores for you to do since you owe me for paying for that equipment. You can start on them tomorrow."

"I don't like clowns," Daiba mumbled, his face growing a startling red as he finally came to his senses.

"I could tell. Don't do that again."

"Yessir. Are you going to tell everyone about this?"

"Yes."

Somehow, his face managed to get even redder. "Okay. H-happy Halloween, Captain."

Harlock smiled, clapping a hand down on his crewman's shoulder to knock some of the sand off. "Happy Halloween, Daiba. Next year, just stay on the ship."

The teen's eyes went wide. "But what if it's haunted?"

Harlock thought for a moment. Well…technically… "Don't worry. We've only got friendly ghosts."

He left with a slight smirk on his face as Daiba spluttered in terror behind him. "Y-you're joking right? You do that? You joke? Captain? W-we don't have ghosts…do we?"

* * *

**I'll be finishing the final one before Halloween's over. In the final fic, Mayu, Emeraldas, and Tochiro do some trick-or-treating. **


	10. October's End (SPCH-verse)

**Requested by Emerarudasu: "Emeraldas and Tochiro (and maybe Harlock) take Mayu trick-or-treating."**

**Ahh I'm not really late, because it was finished before midnight. It just took me a few minutes to upload it to tumblr and edit it and then get it here. I hope you all like this one. Thanks so much for reading these. I had a lot of fun. I'm thinking I'll do one of these for December too.**

* * *

Heavy Meldar wasn't the most ideal place for trick-or-treating. It was windy and a bit hot for stuffy outfits. The desert landscape constantly kicked up dust, so it was best to always wear clothing that covered all over. There weren't many houses in a row, and candy was hard to come by, but the resilient people refused to let that get the better of their holiday. They made it work.

Tochiro admired that about them, how hard they worked just to have one night where everyone could enjoy themselves with something simple. They were all so giving.

"Ready, Mayu?" he smiled, squatting down to her level and holding out his arms. She crawled toward him, her arms a bit unsteady. Her costume, a little pale gray dress with darker dray splotches, drug along on the ground until he scooped her up and placed her on his shoulder. His cloak was a mix of deep blues and greens with occasional swirls of white. He thought he'd done a pretty good job on costumes if he did say so himself.

"What am I supposed to be exactly?" Harlock questioned as he stepped outside. The outfit he'd been forced into was a warm crimson with patches of black. Each outfit was obviously handmade with paint, and Harlock wasn't so sure about his friend's artistic ability. "What are _we_ supposed to be exactly? Why did I agree to this?"

Emeraldas appeared behind Tochiro, carefully brushing her little girl's hair back into place. "Because sometimes you actually enjoy having fun, Harlock." She wore a flowing dress that glimmered with warm reds and golds as though it were fire.

"We're the solar system!" Tochiro laughed. "Well, some of it anyway. Didn't have enough people to make the whole thing. You're Mars, can't you tell?"

No. "I guess so."

"It's for Mayu anyway," the short man shrugged. "But we can't stay out too late, because she has to get to bed."

The sun was already setting, and the young girl watched the warming sky with bright, curious eyes.

"Fine-fine," Harlock muttered. She obviously didn't have any interest in trick-or-treating. She wasn't even one yet, and she couldn't eat candy. But she was very cute in her outfit... Okay, maybe this wasn't so bad.

The town bustled as much as it could for such a small area. All the children eagerly ran around from house to house or person to person, singing "trick-or-treat" in a plea for whatever they could get. Mostly, it was homemade sweets, sometimes fruit, and sometimes cakes. They were all happy with any of it.

"Hey-hey, you guys!" the young, orange-haired scamp called as he raced up behind the group of planets and the star. He was carrying an armful of treats, and he held them out with a grin. "Look, I made some stuff for the kids. You all can have some too." His eyes brightened at the sight of Mayu. "Ah, she's so cute."

Harlock felt a strange surge of protectiveness shoot through him. He'd never had any problem with the boy, but he'd suddenly decided that Mayu didn't need to be near him. In fact, she didn't need to be near anyone that wasn't her parents or her godfather.

Luckily he was able to push his feelings aside because he did like the scamp well enough, and he took a wrapped rock candy as his friends did.

"You have to say 'trick or treat', Mayu," Tochiro explained. The girl responded with a soft coo and was given two candies.

"She's so cute," the boy said again before running off with a wave.

"He says they're for the kids, but he's just a kid himself," Emeraldas frowned.

Harlock's words fell from his mouth before he could stop them. "I think we shouldn't let the other children near Mayu."

"What?" Tochiro blinked, slowly turning toward his friend.

"They might try to harass her," the taller male explained.

Emeraldas raised a brow. "Harlock, she's not even one. She'll be alright. No one's going to bother her."

"But they might do…something," he growled.

"I thought you liked kids," Tochiro frowned.

"I do! I just…like them better when they're not around Mayu." None of what he was saying made much sense, and he knew that. But Mayu needed to be protected from things, because she was so small and adorable, and as godfather, it was his job.

"Have you been drinking?" Emeraldas snapped suddenly.

"What? No!"

She glared at him, leaning in close. "Then stop being weird. My daughter is going to have a good Halloween. You understand?"

Harlock quickly nodded, his eye wide under her firm stare. And he did try his best to behave, but he'd find himself glaring at the kids who stepped a bit too close. Everyone adored Mayu's costume even if they didn't immediately realize what she was. "She's Daddy's little moon," Tochiro explained to a woman who asked. "She's just as bright and beautiful as the one in the Earth's night sky."

Harlock forced himself to think that they were having a much better time here than they ever could have on Earth, and it was true. There was no way they could have gotten along as well with the apathetic people of Earth, but he knew his friend missed the blue planet.

They played a few of the simple games that had been set up. Tochiro had to drag Harlock and Emeraldas away from the shooting range before they decided to spent all night there trying to see who was better. Mayu was particularly adept at throwing the rings at the bottles. She never actually got close enough to hit a bottle, but she was very good at just throwing them. She received far more treats than she could possibly do anything with.

At the end of the might, as she dozed in against her father's shoulder, the group divided up the haul and set to work eating it. "Remember Halloween when you were a kid and your dad stole all your candy?" Tochiro smiled as he reminisced.

"My father never took any of my candy," Harlock muttered in confusion.

"We didn't have Halloween," Emeraldas added.

"Wha-!? But my dad said that everyone's parents took a share of their candy."

His friend tried to stifle a laugh. "Your dad was lying."

"That jerk."

Emeraldas stared down at her pile of treats. "Isn't that what we're doing right now?"

"No," the short man decided. "I saved her the stuff that she could eat, but the rest of this would be bad for her." They had to agree with him simply because they didn't feel like giving up their stash of food. "Think when she's a little older she'll be able to trick or treat on Earth? Think it'll be better before she gets too old like us?"

"Yeah," Harlock smiled tiredly. "I think it will be."

"We'll make sure it is," Emeraldas hummed, reaching out to pet her baby's hair.

Tochiro grinned, relieved by their assurances. He leaned his cheek against the top of his little girl's head. "Happy Halloween, Mayu," he whispered. "Maybe next year you can have all of your candy to yourself."


End file.
